


Chain Reaction

by Abyssiniana



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Keith works for UberEats, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining Shiro (Voltron), UberEats AU, delivery boy!Keith, pre-kerb Shiro, there's too much pining and Katie is a devil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-06 23:49:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17949509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abyssiniana/pseuds/Abyssiniana
Summary: My Sheithlentines 2019 gift forNikki!“Their service is lousy,” she provided further, expressively counting with her fingers, “The delivery tax is overpriced and they’re always late, by the time the food arrives it's cold and the containers are all jagged from crappy driving and still they expect a tip.“Beats going out.” He countered with a shrug, tapping the screen to fulfill his order.— In which Shiro has a crush on the man who brings him food, and Katie is having none of that.





	Chain Reaction

“You're getting Uber again?”

 

Katie was the type of genius who silently analyzed every single detail she could get her eyes on; it was a natural, automated response triggered by a brain that was constantly pushed to its limits. A little Sherlock lived within her head with a magnifying glass, a Scotland Yard force on the tip of her unscrupulous tongue. Nothing escaped her sharp wits and intellect, behind the lens of the pair of glasses she didn’t really need but still wore for nerd points.

 

Shiro should have known, but he didn't expect her to notice the receipts on top of the coffee table or the yellow recycling bin filled with disposable takeaway containers. Truth be told, he didn’t bother to hide either. He looked up from the app on his smartphone to meet hazel, judgmental eyes.

 

“Their service is lousy,” she provided further, expressively counting with her fingers, “The delivery tax is overpriced and they’re always late, by the time the food arrives it's cold and the containers are all jagged from crappy driving and still they expect a tip.”

 

“Beats going out.” He countered with a shrug, tapping the screen to fulfill his order.

 

“You have a take-away restaurant right beneath your building.”

 

“I don't feel like Chinese. Plus I'd have to get dressed; the whole point is that I get to chill in sweats.”

 

“They're familiarized enough with you that if you called them they'd bring your  _ chop suey _ up here without additional charge; also, it wouldn't be the first time, and unfortunately probably not the last either, you'd go out on sweats, that hideous shirt and flip flops.”

 

“That was  _ before _ Uber.”

 

A silence befell the two, the weight of reality augmented by the paused video game on the television. Even without glancing at his side, he knew Katie squinted at him in attempt to dig deeper into a situation that honestly, had nothing more to it. Just a lazy guy, in his sweats, too sluggish to bother getting dressed to go to the supermarket or a take-away establishment himself. Was it so wrong? “Can you keep playing now? I’m trying to decide between a  _ CBO _ or a  _ Filet-O-Fish _ .”

 

“... You have a crush on a delivery guy.” She concluded, speaking like her words were backed up with solid evidence.

 

“Oh my  _ God _ , Katie.” 

 

_ Okay, maybe there was a little more to it than just food and the lethargic lack of will to go get it himself. _

 

“You’re pitiful, you know that?” The young girl smirked, returning to her game, skilled fingers dancing over the controller like they owned it. “You’re gonna get fat and he’s not going to want you.”

 

Shiro looked down at himself, hand resting over his pack of abs; he did have a little chub on his sides, but it was healthy fat, and a burger or two a week wouldn’t change that. He worked out anyway and kept a vigorous balanced diet outside these very few greasy, weekly pleasures. “I’m not getting — ” 

 

“A _ ha _ ! So there  _ is _ a guy.” God damn it, why couldn’t he have waited for Matt to pick her up before ordering? His rumbling empty stomach answered that question for him. “Does the sexy delivery boy have a name?”

 

No use hiding when his secret had already been uncovered like it was never hidden in the first place. He sighed and rubbed his forehead, massaging it as if he didn’t remember the face, the eyes, the almost-there smile, the height and scent of the guy who always - by fate, if you asked someone not half as skeptical as Shiro - brought him his orders.

 

“... Keith.”

 

“This looks like a plot coming straight out of a cheesy porno, wait until Matt hears about it.” Shiro was about to protest, a repressing frown on his brow, but was silenced with a gesture. “Don’t worry, Takashi. I’ll forget everything if you buy me a  _ McFlurry _ . M&Ms. Extra topping. Plus liquid chocolate.”

 

Snarky little brat with her calculated blackmail. Who would have thought a fifteen year old would have him on the palm of her manipulative hand like so?

 

Coming to think of it, it was no rocket science; it had a lot to do with the fact that his late teenage years had been spent with Katie as a little sister, the youngest member of the host family who took him in for the Japan-USA exchange program he was integrated in back then. The Holts were the realest family Shiro had ever had, if he were to be honest, and the one he would most likely keep for the rest of his life. For all that was worth, Samuel Holt was a father, Colleen a mother, and Matt and Katie were his annoying little siblings for whom he would do anything at all if they only asked.

 

“You shouldn’t eat that.” He said, as he added the ice cream to his order; just in case. “Chocolate is bad for your skin, you’re full of breakouts.”

 

Katie might have retorted with an offended reply, but Shiro was a little too lost in the words that popped up on his screen the moment he confirmed the payment and completed his side of the exchange to bother snickering back at her.

 

He thought of black, helmet plastered hair, longer in the back, bangs in his forehead, the scent of faux leather with a hint of desert air and faint sweat. He thought of indigo colored eyes, of the few beauty marks that formed a little constellation on his cheek. He thought of  _ him _ as he read those words, and he thought that twenty to thirty minutes was just a little too long to wait for him with the giddy anticipation that started at Shiro’s toes and rose up to straighten his spine and grab him by the back of the neck.

 

**_Keith is bringing your food._ **

 

* * *

 

“Uber here.” Voice all honey and mellow silk melted into Shiro’s ears as he heard them through the intercom system. He allowed himself to indulge in the low quality image that framed a section of Keith’s face as he bit his lip. It flickered with grey-hued interference until it focused, only to blur again in a matter of moments. “Open up.”

 

“You know the floor.” Shiro said after clicking the button to buzz the door open.

 

“I sure do.” Keith disappeared from the periphery of the image to enter the building, and Shiro didn’t have to hold the phone to his ear for as long as he did, bathing on the ghostly remains of a voice that he would hear again in a few seconds, but each second was a second too long. 

 

“Gross, he’s flirting with you.” Pidge provided from the living room.

 

“He’s really not. We just… do that always. Kind of like a joke? It’s because he doesn’t have to check my address anymore.” Shiro stopped by the mirror embedded on the wall by the door, fixing his hair in attempt to save the ridiculous black forelock from making him look like an idiot. To no avail. Hair aside, was his face okay? His pants, shirt? He patted whatever dust may have accumulated on his clothes, fully aware that there was really nothing there.

 

“Uh. So you always flirt.” She groaned, eyes still fixated on her medieval themed video game. “And I hope that’s not a tip you’re picking up from your back pocket, he’s seven minutes late, he deserves nothing. Unimpressed.”

 

“Hush it, Pidge.”

 

It took thirty steps by the stairs, or alternatively, no longer than six seconds by elevator. Shiro counted either mentally, in sync with his heartbeat, anticipation accumulating in the form of sweaty palms and uneven breath. 

 

With a ding, the doors of the elevator slid open and he walked out, cubic bag over his shoulder, smile striking like lightning.

 

“Hey.” Keith, the “usual” Uber. Somehow Keith was always the one around to deliver his food; in his dumb private fantasy, Shiro liked to imagine a battle royale between the drivers in their app and that Keith was always the brave champion who wound up victorious. What begun as a coincidence had become habit, polite smiles which had only come to grow in their percentage of fondness. Every time they met at Shiro’s doorstep, they took a little bit of each other until there was nothing left of themselves and all that remained was something they were together.

 

Well. Kind of.

 

Their dialogue hardly ever moved from casual civility with a hint of charm, but Shiro always felt it with the intensity of a shoujo manga protagonist: five times harder, thundering heart in his chest, and little flower petals all around them, and Keith was the archetype of an unattainable crush. 

 

_ Man, Keith was gorgeous. _

 

“Hello, excuse me. I’ll take that. Thank you very much.” Katie slipped from inside the apartment, reaching between Shiro and the driver to grab her ice cream and the plastic spoon from the latter’s hands. “Matt’s waiting in the car downstairs, I’ll be going now. See ya, Shiro.”

 

It was probably the first time Shiro was glad to see Katie going away; she was like a sister to him and he loved her unconditionally, but she was... unpredictable, to say the least. Trusting her was like walking through a minefield while blindfolded. Just as she had smiled and entered the elevator, finally out of sight, her dirty blond head popped back out, her words directed to the cute driver.

 

The floor around Shiro might have fallen, cracking underneath his feet and dooming him to a free fall without effectively moving from where he stood. The icy winds from the North Pole blew right at the end of his back, his muscles twitching and his jaw tensing, teeth clenching, fist curled, breathing…  _ forgotten _ , Shiro forgot how to breathe and the whole process seemed too foreign to him. Katie’s words echoed in his head, face tainted in an unhealthy carmin. 

 

_ “He likes you, by the way.” _

 

Fucking  **_brat_ ** . Betrayal. Utter treachery, double-crossing, a cold stab in the back. He had no memory of fantasizing about the several ways he could get back to the girl -  _ indian burns, change the WiFi password, hide all of her pants and leave her with dresses only, or worst of all, telling her mother _ \- but he would surely get creative with them afterwards.

 

Keith’s eyes were blown wide, an unhealthy shade of red to almost match his jacket’s. Poor thing was embarrassed, though not nearly as much as Shiro was.

 

“I’m sorry, she’s—” He managed to drag out of his throat, though the immediacy on which he was interrupted had him wondering if he had actually spoken them.

 

“Have a good evening, sir.” Keith - head down, eyes hidden by the bangs - said before taking the stairs and hurrying down, exiting Shiro’s range of vision before he could stop it. Just like that, the exchange was complete, his dinner in his hand, tip undelivered and heart…

 

_ Stagnant. _

 

There was no way of telling how much time he had passed in the timed darkness; the automatic ceiling light flipped back on when a neighbor exited her apartment further down the hall, waving at Shiro but rushing away to work before he could say hello back.

 

His feet were dragged across the carpeted floor, his whole body flopping on the couch close to lifeless. That had been embarrassing.

 

His phone pinged with a notification from the UberEats app.

 

**_How was Keith’s delivery? Your feedback helps improve the delivery experience._ **

 

Keith's photo on the  _ UberEats _ mobile app looked suspiciously like a mugshot but that was absurd; Keith was an angel who would never do anything immoral or hurt anyone; not because he couldn't, more like he wouldn't want to. A rebel boy with a heart of butter, a cracked armor of glass, desert wind combed hair and vintage faux leather jacket.    
  
And  _ Shiro was weak.  _

 

All this within the realm of speculation of someone who meets semi-regularly for no longer than two minutes, of course. What Shiro objectively knew about Keith was… His name. His bike (he would recognize the red bicycle anywhere even if nothing in particular made it stand out from the others). His voice… uh…

 

_ Well _ . Not much, indeed.    
  
What type of rating was this anyway, that paled so embarrassingly in comparison to what the  _ UberEats  _ worker was worth? Shiro gave him five stars for the service only because he wasn't allowed to give six or seven or more. If the question extended to how many stars did Keith truly deserve, then he would have to make use of his degree in Astrophysics and fascination for space to nominate every single star in the known universe. It wasn't like Keith needed them, he already had a little infinity inside each of his indigo eyes but if Shiro could—   
  
He tapped the goddamn five stars; it was just a service rate, not an existential crisis in the planetarium of the beautiful eyes of a food delivery guy.

 

The true cataclysm was the cold food on the counter of the kitchen — burger untouched, fries soft and oily, the flavor of the drink withered by the exaggerated amount of ice that filled the cup — and the fact that Keith was bound to never, ever bring another order to his address.

 

Mostly Shiro leaned forward as he sat on the couch, face on his palms and he attempted to rationalize.

 

He didn’t know Keith; Keith was just a cute guy who coincidentally happened to be the closest to his location all the five or six times he had requested for UberEats to deliver food to his place. Coincidences are just that; random. There was no mystical occurence tying them together, nothing fatidical nor metaphysical. Simply… chance.

 

He didn’t know him, what the heck was he  _ thinking _ ?! Keith probably had a girlfriend (or two) and they were mocking him right at that second, insulting him as the weirdo from the third floor of the apartment building in Black Lion Street with a dumb, frivolous crush.

 

He only lifted his head when he found himself capable of taking a deep breath, tears stinging the corners of his angled eyes but forbidden to roll down. The silly fantasy he had created around a stranger sounded childish and creepy, looking back at it, so Shiro chose to leave it at that.

 

* * *

 

The military digital watch on his wrist beeped with the turn of the hour: 1800. Katie should be arriving soon, as their “temporary arrangement made routine after two months of doing it” dictated. So she wouldn’t have to catch the overcrowded train or the suffocating bus home, she would stay over at Shiro’s apartment until Matt would leave work around seven to pick her up.

 

As usual, his belly was already demanding dinner, used to the military schedule of the Galaxy Garrison. Raiding the cupboard and finding nothing but a tuna can and some likely outdated soy sauce was depressing to say the least.

 

So no dinner there; he didn’t feel like going out, definitely not in the mood for Chinese food, and normally his favorite resort would be his first choice but had been automatically put out of the question for a while. 

 

Two weeks had slowly passed since he had last seen Keith. It hadn’t felt right to touch that app again even, under the chance of forcing Keith to come over again. The uninstall had been emotionally draining, but the temptation would be too great if it remained on the screen of his phone, one click away. The icon was haunting, as was the humiliation he had parted ways with the boy the last time. He couldn't decide why would hurt more; to have his food delivered by Keith, their banter reduced even further to the barest essentials, or someone else he had never seen before. 

 

The doorbell rang and Shiro groaned; Katie had her own key, and only out of laziness would ring the bell instead of opening the door herself. Typically he would go through the trouble of putting down his novel, get up from the couch and let her in, but not after her sneaky, dirty perfidy.

 

It wasn’t fair to blame it on a fifteen year old, but it was also easier to do it, as hard as that was to admit.

 

“I don’t care if your key is in the bottom of your backpack, Pidge, get it or you might as well camp outside.” He spoke loud enough to be heard from the other side of the door and returned to his book, unable to focus on any word.

 

_ “Shiro…?” _

 

That wasn’t Katie’s voice, for sure, unless she was faking it by lowering a few raspy octaves. If he hadn’t dreamt of that voice so often, he probably would have missed it, but that was him,  _ that was Keith for sure _ —

 

The book was left wide open, pages criminally bent and forgotten among blankets and pillows. Shiro almost ran to the door, shoving it open without bothering to peek first and he still found himself shocked that it  _ was _ him, in all of his effortless handsome glory. 

 

“Keith.” He blinked in confusion, only then realizing that he hadn’t bothered to check his hair. Hurriedly patting it, he only hoped he didn’t look as messy as he felt. “I… didn’t order anything.”

 

Coming to think of it it had been a dumb thing to say, Keith wasn’t even carrying the gaudy green food transportation bag, or the clingy smell of fast-food chain restaurants. What other reason would he have to stumble back to the apartment where they both had been so brutally abashed? The memory alone made his heart sink to his stomach, but he forced a breath out from his lungs to avoid dying right there and then.

 

“Exactly,” words weren’t coming easy to the delivery boy either, he figured, pretty face flustered in all hues of red and pink. “You… uh. I mean. You didn’t. So I thought I’d… take you. To the food this time.” 

 

“I’m sorry, what...?” Shiro’s laugh was strained and nervous, all of him was, from the tense jaw to the shaky tips of his fingers. “What did you say?”

 

With his hands shoved into his pockets, lightly swinging on his feet, Keith muttered, “I want to… take you out. To eat. Somewhere.”

 

Shiro breathed in and then out. Several times, he later noticed. Had he the ability to move, he would have pinched himself,  _ like,  _ **_what_ ** ?,  _ oh wow _ , he had to be dreaming, perhaps hallucinating. But at the physical reach of his hand, Keith waited, lower lip kneaded by his teeth, breathing uneven, desperate for an answer. 

 

Was this real, even?

 

“Like a date?” He tentatively questioned, eyebrow raising in hopefulness that would destroy his heart if it blindly jumped to free fall.

 

“A-a date.”

 

A twenty-five year old, grown ass six foot one man, about to bloody squeal? Not cool.

 

Before Shiro would hyperventilate at the mere concept of hanging out with Keith, he smiled as widely as the stretch of his mouth would allow him to. He'd have to take a quick shower to be ridded of the depressive coat of sweat and overall grossness that weighed on his body after days of not bothering to get up, but if Keith wouldn't mind coming in, he'd be ready in fifteen minutes. 

 

_ A date. With Keith “delivery boy™” Kogane. _

 

“I'd love to.” 

 


End file.
